Can an existing Sky dish be used for FTA??

Seanie M

We have recently bought a house, which has a Sky dish on the back wall. Besides reconnecting the coax which, for some reason, was cut in the attic, can I buy a second hand Sky box, get a FTA card (links please?!?!), stick it in and tune away to my hearts content?

I'm a newbie to this area of TV, so any other suggestions or tips welcome.

Thanks,

Seanie.

Cal

Yes. And the only reason you might want the FTA card is to get Channel 4 & 5. You can get all the other FTA stuff without the card.

Cal.

Seanie M

Cal wrote:

Yes. And the only reason you might want the FTA card is to get Channel 4 & 5. You can get all the other FTA stuff without the card.

Cal.

Quick reply - thanks Cal! So, the Beebs, UTV etc etc are all able to be decoded by the box itself already? Handy to know. And Channel 4 has some good stuff on now and again (NOT Big Brother! :P ), so the once-off payment for the FTA card would proably be worth it.

By the way folks, regarding tuning - I presume I just let my telly do its auto tune dance when I have the box connected, like it does on the aerial?

Seanie.

Cal

Seanie M wrote:

I presume I just let my telly do its auto tune dance when I have the box connected, like it does on the aerial?

Seanie.

You just tune in the Sky box to the TV and you switch channel on the sky box.

Cal.

watty

The video / picture quality is HUGELY better via SCART than RF aerial/tuner.
RGB mode even better.

On multi scart TVs usually only one SCART is RGB

It's a FTV card. There is no such thing as a FTA card. FTA doesn't use a card.

Seanie M

Thanks Cal.

And yes, you're correct Watty, my 'mistake'!

Seanie.

Cal

watty wrote:

RGB mode even better.

For a long time I avoided RGB as I felt that the colour bled a bit. For the last 6 months or so I've used RGB and have gotten over the bleed thing. I read something about certain brands of TV working better with RGB than others. Any truth in this? Mine is a Panasonic.

Cal.

watty

True. some very old TVs do not properly implement RGB.

Actually PAL has a false sharpness and very annoying patterning on edges of colour (or entrire colour if small caption). Also false colour on any fine B& W detail.

PAL you can set the colour too high or too low

RGB suffers none of this and has no colour bleed at all. You can't adjust the "Colour" level, it is what the Broadcaster / DVD intends.

Seanie M

In addition to all this, lads and lassies, anyone know where I can get one extremely soon? Local sources are not answering their phones! Living near Tullamore.
(Already put in a 'wanted' ad in the For Sale orum - no answer!)

Seanie M

Got a Strong 4012 satellite receiver from satellite.ie, and I got it working this morning with the Sky dish. We now have 224 TV channels and about 60 radio channels!!

Although I do miss Channel 4 for Football Italia!

Seanie.